I donāt want to be the negative Nancy here, but this all sounds quite abstract to me. How did the upgrades this week improve Ratebeer for me as a user?
Yeah I guess they used premium blockchain technology to upload big data to the cloud using a 3.0 UNIX VPN server image, but I canāt help but wondering how that improves things for me.
That is an incredibly techy changelog Joe, might want to translate some of that into layman?
I donāt want to be a negative Nancy either, but I canāt help but feel you should be focusing on bug fixes before doing stuff like this. And I agree with DutchDrebus; even as a technically-inclined person Iām a bit confused about what relevance some of those things have to users. Ghost Inspector, Refactored search components (what exactly changed?), Feature toggling (where? in the app?), things like that need more explanation.
EDIT: Ok you just addressed that while I wrote this replyā¦ carry on!
Since youāre reading, hereās a couple of simple fixes Iād like to see before feature additions, Iām sure Iām not the only person being consistently mildly annoyed by these:
I can no longer middle-click or ctrl-click to open links in a new tab. This was fixed once before but is now broken again since todayās update.
On the ānew beer pageā there is no way to add tags to a beer unless it already has some (so no way to add them to new beers). I think you should always show the Tags box, but write in there āno tags yet, would you like to add some?ā or words to that effect. And clicking that would go to the add tags page. Obviously.
On the ānew beer pageā the link to add a photo goes to a mailto address which is apparently full. Please donāt make us email in photos, that is extra work for both users and staff. Put the old link back.
In Places, if a Place has an official website link using https clicking it will be broken as the colon gets stripped. Some admins are replacing https with http as a workaround. This should be discouraged. We should be encouraging https usage and making the internet more secure, not the other way round.
Search is now handling some things a lot better (āandā or ā&ā in brewer names can now be omitted and you actually get the expected results now!), and brewers such as O/O now actually appear in results. However one thing was still not fixed and thatās when there are dots (periods for you Americans) are in brewer/beer namesā¦
J.W. Lees also written as JW Lees, or J.W Lees. None of these three terms find the brewer in the search. Nor will it find their beers (aside from a couple of collabs). So it is currently impossible to get to the brewer directly, we must either first get to one of their beers then click the brewery name, or just use Google.
Jesus christ, people, Iām actually going to side with Joe on this one for the first time in history here: you are being ridiculous. You donāt understand what heās posting yet you claim theyāre working on the wrong thing. Would you prefer he post nothing at all? Or would you prefer to write the roadmap yourself despite not having the requisite technical knowledge? Even basic bug fixes often require technical changes on the backend that to the layperson wouldnāt correlate. And an important part of building (or rebuilding) any website or app is setting up a firm technical foundation to ensure quality down the road. Thatās what most of this stuff is.
Youāre taking my comments in a pretty extreme way but ok, allow me to clarify what I was saying so I donāt get misinterpreted.
Firstly, thereās no sides to pick. We all want a better Ratebeer. Iād hoped that my post was constructive and wasnāt antagonising or creating an us vs them mentality. Iām actually quite pleased to see a public update. Iām only voicing my concerns on the order in which things are being done.
Secondly, I do understand what heās posting about, I never said I didnāt. If you re-read my post youāll see I said that I was confused at whether they were relevant for users to read (since most here wonāt know what they mean), and that they should be worded in a manner everyone can understand, not just those in the tech industry. Joe already replied to DutchDrebus who had the same thoughts I did, and he said he would communicate them in a more user-friendly manner next time. So he obviously agrees in hindsight that this one was a bit too techy.
I also never claimed heās working on the wrong thing, just that I personally and (judging by what threads get the most posts on this forum) many others would prefer bugs to be fixed before new features are added. If Joe disagrees and wants to add features first thatās fine, Iām not his boss, his adviser or anything like that, Iām just a user. Iām happy to see stuff is being worked on regardless.
Iām in the website/app industry myself. I know the sort of stuff that needs to happen behind the scenes, and that the size of this website is on a much larger scale than anything Iāve worked on so will take more time. Iāve faced constant criticism myself in the past, itās fucking annoying at times I must admit, but it also pushed me to improve things, and reach a point where criticism became praise. Joe and the RB team are on a good path in my opinion, I just feel the prioritisation is out of kilter with what users actually want - so I question whether itās the best path for the site.
But why working on new functions like āFavoritesā pages (did someone asked for that?) before fixing what everybody are urging you guys to fix or to bring back since the new layout implementation.
We still have many basic missing things in the beer page:
real score;
location;
contract brewer;
tag implementation;
Many pages are still using the old design:
Brewers pages;
place pages;
Userās profile pages;
or things that make people simply rage:
safer ruler to rate/tick (like the one in the app);
very unintuitive search of places with special characters;
no alphabetical order search in brewerās page with the app;
Awful loading times between pages and when scrolling;
Pics getting updated or not randomly;
or things that should be prioritized to meet with the competition:
applying the same/similar rating mechanic on website vs app (like implementing the app ruler in the website);
Tasting Now 1-step button working on the app but not the website (which should share a place with the Find It Near You function);
having no way to add a pic with the app;
Places Nearby (the geolocalisation function is already working to find where you had a beer with the appā¦so why isnāt Nearby places fonction added?);
Two things: First, I donĀ“t want so see spanish reviews first. Second, I donĀ“t know why in the first search appears a review from 5 days ago (Olio review) when in the second one the first review is from April 15th.
Again, sorry if this bug is already being discussed.
But itās really annoying. Really really really annoying. Now, when I click a rating out of the latest activity list, it doesnt show me the rating I clicked on. Instead, I just get tons of āmost recentā ratings, that I dont care for. If I click on a beer rating, what else would I want than that rating to be showed on top?
Somehow this question is always ignored. And itās the most important question there is. Why add new (bugged) features when there are still so many basic things to fix?
Because the redesign is nothing to do with giving (or giving back) existing users what they want. Itās about giving the people who think they know what would attract people who donāt use the site what they imagine will work.
Iāll be sure we communicate updates in more user-friendly terms next time. Thanks! cheers
